Exterior Paint Color Inspiration

One of the major projects we have on our radar for spring is repairing siding and painting the exterior of the house. This isn’t something we really had on our radar, but unfortunately, it seems the previous owners did a quick paint job to get it sold and it’s not holding up very well. You can’t really tell from the street, but when you get close, the paint is peeling really badly and the siding is getting pretty bad in a few places.

The good news is that now we can fix it and do it right (often, the story of this house!). At first, I figured we’ve had to keep the house the same color for budget reasons, but I’ve since learned that the painters will do two coats anyways so it’s not an additional cost to change the color (silver lining?). I’ve started searching for a new paint color, and we’ll also be painting the fence, front porch and back deck – currently, everything is the same color, minus the trim, which is white and I’m looking forward to creating some contrast and not so much … beige.

We do have a brown roof, which we’re not replacing anytime soon (I hope!) so I’m somewhat limited on colors we can choose. We get a lot of hot, afternoon sun on the front of the house so I wouldn’t want to go too much darker than we are now, just a little less yellow. Below are some inspiration pictures I’ve been pinning and I’ve started painting some samples outside as well. Right now, I’m leaning towards Tony Taupe by Sherwin Williams – it’s what they used for the 2013 HGTV Smart home. While our house wouldn’t be quite so coastal, I think it’d play off the 1970s architecture well. It looks more yellow in the picture below, but it appears more gray on our house.

This darker gray is really pretty, and it’s nice to see something with a brown roof. It was hard to find inspiration pics that looked like our home!

I really like the bright door on this one, but the body color may be a little too close to the color we currently have.

Any tips for choosing outdoor paint colors? I’m a little nervous since this one can’t be easily changed like the interior!